her act was less striking as evidence of her bravery, than as testifying
her confidence in the chivalry of the rough men before her. And, indeed,
it was comical to see the dumbfoundered and chop-fallen expression on
their flushed and excited faces, as they took in the meaning of this
piece of strategy. They had taken up arms against their government, and
but a few moments before had been restrained with difficulty from laying
violent hands upon the august judges of the land, but not the boldest of
them thought it possible to touch this woman. There were men here whom
neither lines of bayonets nor walls of stone would have turned back,
but not one of them was bold enough to lay a forcible hand upon the veil
that covered a woman's breast. They were Americans.
There was a dead silence. The men gaped at each other, and Perez himself
looked a little foolish for a moment. Then he turned to Abner and said
in a grimly quiet way:
“Knock Bement down. Then four of you swing him by his arms and legs and
break the jail door through with his head.”
“Ye wouldn' murder me, cap'n,” gasped the hapless man. In a trice Abner
had hauled him out from behind the bar, and tripped him up on the floor.
Then three other men, together with Abner, seized him by the hands and
feet, and half dragged, half carried him across the room to the door in
the middle of one of the sides which opened into the jail corridor.
“Swing the cuss three times, so's ter git kinder a goin, an then we'll
see w'ether his head or the door's the thickest,” said Abner.
“Giv' em the keys, Marthy. They're a killin me,” screeched Bement.
The woman had set her teeth. Her face was a little whiter, the red spots
under her cheek bones were a little smaller and a little redder than
before. That was all the sign she gave. Putting her hand convulsively
over the spot on her bosom where the desired articles were secreted, she
replied in a shrill voice:
“I shell keep the keys, Cephas. It's my dewty. Pray, Cephas, that I may
hev strength given me ter dew my dewty.”
“Ye won't see me killed 'fore yer eyes, will ye, give em the keys I tell
ye,” shrieked Bement, as they began to swing him, and Abner said:
“One.”
The woman looked a bit more like going into hysterics, but not a whit
more like yielding.
“Mebbe t'wont kill ye, an they can't bust the door, nohow. Mebbe they'll
git tuckered 'fore long. If wust comes to wust, it's a comfort ter know
ez ye're a perfesser in good stannin.”
Bement had doubtless had previous experience of a certain tenacity
of purpose on the part of his spouse, for ceasing to address further
adjurations to her, he began to appeal for mercy to the men.
“Two,” said Abner, as they swung him again.
Now, Mrs. Poor and Prudence, having been thrust out of the barroom just
before the mob thundered up against the barred door, had been borne back
into the room again by the rush when the door was opened, and it was
Mrs. Poor who now made a diversion.
“Look a here, Abner Rathbun,” she said. “W'at in time's the use of
murd'rin the man? He hain't done nothin. It's the woman, as has got the
keys. She wouldn' let me inter see Zadkiel, an I'm jess a itchin tew git
my hands ontew her, an that's the trewth, ef I be a perfesser. You let
the man alone. I'll git them keys, or my name ain't Resignation Ann
Poor.”
There was a general murmur of approval, and without waiting for orders
from Perez, Abner and his helpers let Bement drop, and he scrambled to
his feet.
Mrs. Bement began to pant. She knew well enough that she had nothing
to fear from all the men in Massachusetts, but one of her own sex was a
more formidable enemy. And, indeed, a much more robust person than the
jailer's little wife, might have been excused for not relishing a tussle
with the tall, rawboned old woman, with hands brown, muscular, and
labor hardened as a man's, who now laid her big green sunbonnet on the
counter, and stepping to the open end of the bar, advanced toward her.
Mrs. Poor held her hands before her about breast high, at half arm's
length, elbows depressed, palms turned outward, the fingers curved like
a cat's claws. There was an expression of grim satisfaction on her hard
features.
Mrs. Bement stood awaiting her, breathing hard, evidently scared, but
equally evidently, furious.
“Give em the keys, Marthy. She'll kill ye,” called out Bement, from the
back of the room.
But she paid no attention to this. Her fingers began to curve back like
claws, and her hands assumed the same feline attitude as Mrs. Poor's.
It was easy to see that the pluck of the little woman extorted a certain
admiration from the very men who had fathers, sons and brothers in the
cells beyond. She was not a bit more than half as big as her antagonist,
but she looked game to the backbone, and the forthcoming result was not
altogether to be predicted. You could have heard a pin drop in the room,
as the men leaned over the counter with faces expressive of intensest
excitement, while those behind stood on tiptoe to see. For the moment
everything else was forgotten in the interest of the impending combat.
Mrs. Bement seemed drawing back for a spring. Then suddenly, quick
as lightning, she put her hand in her bosom, drew out the keys, and
throwing them down on the counter, burst into hysterical sobs.
In another moment the jail door was thrown open, and the men were
rushing down the corridor.
CHAPTER ELEVENTH
END OF THE GOINGS ON AT BARRINGTON
Then, presently, the jail was full of cries of horror and indignation.
For each cell door as it was unbarred and thrown open revealed the
same piteous scene, the deliverers starting back, or standing quite
transfixed before the ghastly and withered figures which rose up before
them from dank pallets of putrid straw. The faces of these dismal
apparitions expressed the terror and apprehension which the tumult
and uproar about the jail had created in minds no longer capable of
entertaining hope.
Ignorant who were the occupants of particular cells it was of course
a matter of chance whether those who opened any one of them, were the
friends of the unfortunates who were its inmates. But for a melancholy
reason this was a matter of indifference. So ghastly a travesty on their
former hale and robust selves, had sickness and sunless confinement
made almost all the prisoners, that not even brothers recognized their
brothers, and the corridor echoed with poignant voices, calling to the
poor creatures:
“What's your name?” “Is this Abijah Galpin?” “Are you my brother Jake?”
“Are you Sol Morris?” “Father, is it you?”
As they entered the jail with the rush of men, Perez had taken
Prudence's hand, and remembering the location of Reuben's cell, stopped
before it, lifted the bar, threw open the door and they went in. George
Fennell was lying on the straw upon the floor. He had raised himself on
one elbow, and was looking apprehensively to see what the opening of
the door would reveal as the cause of this interruption to the usually
sepulchral stillness of the jail. Reuben was standing in the middle of
the floor, eagerly gazing in the same direction. Perez sprang to his
brother's side, his face beautiful with the joy of the deliverer. If
he had been a Frenchman, or an Italian, anything but an Anglo Saxon,
he would have kissed him, with one of those noblest kisses of all,
wherewith once in a lifetime, or so, men may greet each other. But he
only supported him with one arm about the waist, and stroked his wasted
cheek with his hand, and said:
“I've come for you Reub, old boy, you're free.”
Prudence had first peered anxiously into the face of Reuben, and next
glanced at the man lying on the straw. Then she plucked Perez by the
sleeve, and said in an anguished voice:
“Father ain't here. Where is he?” and turned to run out.
“That's your father,” replied Perez, pointing to the sick man.
The girl sprang to his side, and kneeling down, searched with straining
eyes in the bleached and bony face, fringed with matted hair and long
unkempt gray beard, for some trace of the full and ruddy countenance
which she remembered. She would still have hesitated, but her father
said:
“Prudy, my little girl, is it you?”
Her eyes might not recognize the lineaments of the face, but her heart
recalled the intonation of tenderness, though the voice was weak and
changed. Throwing her arms around his neck, pressing her full red lips
in sobbing kisses upon his corpse-like face, she cried:
“Father! Oh Father!”
Presently the throng began to pour out of the jail, bringing with them
those they had released. The news that the jail was being broken
open, and the prisoners set free, had spread like wildfire through the
thronged village, and nearly two thousand people were now assembled in
front of and about the jail, including besides the people from out
of town, nearly every man, woman and child in Great Barrington,
not actually bedridden, excepting of course, the families of the
magistrates, lawyers, court officers, and the wealthier citizens, who
sympathized with them. These were trembling behind their closed doors,
hoping, but by no means assured, that this sudden popular whirlwind,
might exhaust itself, before involving them in destruction. And indeed
the cries of pity, and the hoarse deep groans of indignation with
which the throng before the jail received the prisoners as they were
successively brought forth, were well calculated to inspire with
apprehension, those who knew that they were held responsible by the
public judgment for the deeds of darkness now being brought to light. It
was now perhaps the old mother and young wife of a prisoner, holding up
between them the son and husband, and guiding his tottering steps,
that set the people crying and groaning. Now it was perhaps a couple
of sturdy sons, unused tears running down their tanned cheeks, as they
brought forth a white-haired father, blinking with bleared eyes at the
forgotten sun, and gazing with dazed terror at the crowd of excited
people. Now it was Perez Hamlin, leading out Reuben, holding him up with
his arm, and crying like a baby in spite of all that he could do. Nor
need he have been ashamed, for there were few men who were not in like
plight. Then came Abner, and Abe Konkapot, stepping carefully, as they
carried in their arms George Fennell, Prudence walking by his side, and
holding fast his hand.
Nor must I forget to speak of Mrs. Poor. The big, raw-boned woman's
hard-favored countenance was lit up with motherly solicitude, as she
lifted, rather than assisted, Zadkiel, down the steps of the tavern.
“Wy don' ye take him up in yer arms?” remarked Obadiah Weeks,
facetiously, but it was truly more touching than amusing, to see the
protecting tenderness of the woman, for the puny little fellow whom an
odd freak of Providence had given her for a husband, instead of a son.
Although Mrs. Poor movingly declared that “He warn't the shadder of
hisself,” the fact was, that having been but a short time in jail,
Zadkiel showed few marks of confinement, far enough was he, from
comparing in this respect, with the others, many of whom had been shut
up for years. They looked, with the dead whiteness of their faces
and hands, rather like grewsome cellar plants, torn from their native
darkness, only to wither in the upper light and air, than like human
organisms just restored to their normal climate. As they moved among the
tanned and ruddy-faced people, their abnormal complexion made them look
like representatives of the strange race of Albinos.
But saddest perhaps of all the sights were the debtors who found no
acquaintances or relatives to welcome them as they came forth again
helpless as at their first birth, into the world of bustle and sun
and breeze. It was piteous to see them wandering about with feeble and
sinewless steps, and vacant eyes, staring timidly at the noisy people,
and shrinking dismayed from the throngs of sympathizing questioners
which gathered round them. There were some whose names not even the
oldest citizens could recall so long had they been shut up from the
sight of men.
Jails in those days were deemed as good places as any for insane
persons, and in fact were the only places available, so that, besides
those whom long confinement had brought almost to the point of
imbecility, there were several entirely insane and idiotic individuals
among the prisoners. One of them went around in a high state of
excitement declaring that it was the resurrection morning. Nor was the
delusion altogether to be marvelled at considering the suddenness with
which its victim had exchanged the cell, which for twenty years had been
his home, for the bright vast firmament of heaven, with its floods of
dazzling light and its blue and bottomless dome.
Another debtor, a man from Sheffield, as a prisoner of war during the
revolution, had experienced the barbarities practiced by the British
provost Cunningham at New York. Having barely returned home to his
native village when he was thrust into jail as a debtor, he had not
unnaturally run the two experiences together in his mind. It was his
hallucination that he had been all the while a prisoner of the British
at New York, and that the victorious Continental army had just arrived
to deliver him and his comrades. In Perez he recognized General
Washington.
“Ye was a long time comin, Ginral, but it's all right now,” he said. “I
knowd ye'd come at las', an I tole the boys not to git diskerridged. The
redcoats has used us bad though, an I hope ye'll hang em, Gin'ral.”
At the time of which I write, rape was practically an unknown crime in
Berkshire, and theft extremely uncommon. But among the debtors there
were a few criminals. These, released with the rest, were promptly
recognized and seized by the people. The general voice was first for
putting them back in the cells, but Abner declared that it would be
doing them a kindness to knock them on the head rather than to send them
back to such pigsties, and this view of the matter finding favor, the
fellows were turned loose with a kick apiece and a warning to make
themselves scarce.
In the first outburst of indignation over the horrible condition of the
prison and the prisoners, there was a yell for Bement, and had the men,
in their first rage, laid hands on him, it certainly would have gone
hard with him. But he was not to be found, and it was not till some time
after, that in ransacking the tavern, some one found him in the garret,
hidden under a tow mattress stuffed with dried leaves, on which the
hired man slept nights. He was hauled downstairs by the heels pretty
roughly, and shoved and buffeted about somewhat, but the people having
now passed into a comparatively exhilarated and good-tempered frame of
mind, he underwent no further punishment, that is in his person. But
that was saved only at the expense of his pocket, for the men insisted
on his going behind the bar and treating the crowd, a process which
was kept up until there was not a drop of liquor in his barrels, and
scarcely a sober man in the village. Mrs. Bement, meanwhile, had been
caught and held by some of the women, while one of the prisoners, a
bestial looking idiot, drivelling and gibbering, and reeking with filth,
was made to kiss her. No other penalty could have been devised at once
so crushing to the victim, and so fully commending itself to the popular
sense of justice.
There were about ten or fifteen of the released debtors whose homes were
in or about Stockbridge, and as they could not walk any considerable
distance, it was necessary to provide for their transport. Israel
Goodrich and Ezra Phelps, as well as other Stockbridge men, had driven
down in their carts, and these vehicles being filled with straw, the
Stockbridge prisoners were placed in them. Israel Goodrich insisted that
Reuben Hamlin and George Fennell, with Prudence, should go in his cart,
and into it were also lifted three or four of the friendless prisoners,
who had nowhere to go, and whose helpless condition had stirred old
Israel's benevolent heart to its depths.
“The poor critters shell stay with me, ef I hev tew send my chil'n tew
the neighbours ter make room fer em,” he declared, blowing his nose with
a blast that made his horses jump.
With six or seven carts leading the way, and some seventy or eighty men
following on foot, the Stockbridge party began the march home about two
o'clock. Full half the men who had marched down in the morning, chose to
remain over in Barrington till later, and a good many were too drunk on
Bement's free rum to walk. Most of Paul Hubbard's ironworkers being in
that condition, he stayed to look after them, and Peleg Bidwell had also
stayed, to see that none of the Stockbridge stragglers got into trouble,
and bring them back when he could. Abner walked at the head of the men.
Perez rode by Israel Goodrich's cart. They went on slowly, and it was
five o'clock when they came in plain view of Stockbridge. The same
exclamation was on every lip. It seemed a year instead of a few hours
only since they had left in the morning.
“It's been a good day's work, Cap'n Hamlin, the best I ever hed a hand
in,” said Israel. “I callate it was the Lord's own work, ef we dew git
hanged for't.”
As the procession passed Israel's house, he helped out his sad guests,
and sent on his cart with its other inmates. All the way back from
Barrington, the Stockbridge company had been meeting a string of men
and boys, in carts and afoot, who, having heard reports of what had been
done, were hastening to see for themselves. Many of these turned back
with the returning procession, others keeping on. This exodus of the
masculine element, begun in the morning, and continued all day, had left
in Stockbridge little save women and girls and small children, always
excepting, of course, the families of the wealthier and governing
classes, who had no part nor lot in the matter. Accordingly, when the
party reached the green, there was only an assemblage of women and
children to receive them. These crowded around the carts containing the
released prisoners, with exclamations of pity and amazement, and as the
vehicles took different directions at the parting of the streets, each
one was followed by a score or two, who witnessed with tearful sympathy
each reunion of husband and wife, of brother and sister, of mother and
son. Several persons offered to take George Fennell, who had no home
to go to, into their houses, but Perez said that he should, for the
present, at least, lodge with him.
As Israel Goodrich's cart, containing Reuben and Fennell and Prudence,
and followed by quite a concourse, turned up the lane to Elnathan
Hamlin's house and stopped before the door, Elnathan and Mrs. Hamlin
came out looking terrified. Perez, fearing some disappointment, had not
told them plainly that he should bring Reuben home, and the report
of the jail-breaking, although it had reached Stockbridge, had not
penetrated to their rather isolated dwelling. So that it was with
chilling apprehensions, rather than hope, that they saw the cart, driven
slowly, as if it carried the dead, stop before their door, and the crowd
of people following it.
“Mother, I've brought Reub home,” said Perez, and a gaunt, wild-looking
man was helped out of the cart, and tottered into Mrs. Hamlin's arms.
There was nothing but the faint, familiar smile, and the unaltered eyes,
to tell her that this was the stalwart son whom the sheriff led away a
year ago. Had she learned that he was dead, it would have shocked her
less than to receive him alive and thus. Elnathan and she led him into
the house between them. Ready hands lifted Fennell out of the cart and
bore him in, Prudence following. And then Perez went in and shut the
door, and the cart drove off, the people following.
Although the shock which Mrs. Hamlin had received was almost
overwhelming, she had known, after the first moment, how to conceal it,
and no sooner had the invalids been brought within doors and comfortably
placed, than she began without a moment's delay, to bestir herself to
prepare them food and drink, and make provision for their comfort. Tears
of anguish filled her eyes whenever she turned aside, but they were
wiped away, and her face was smiling and cheery when she looked at
Reuben. But being with Perez a moment in a place apart, she broke down
and cried bitterly.
“You have brought him home to die,” she said.
But he reassured her.
“I have seen sick men,” he said, “and I don't think Reub will die. He'll
pull through, now he has your care. I'm afraid poor George is too far
gone, but Reub will come out all right. Never fear mother.”
“Far be it from me to limit the Holy One of Israel by my want of faith,”
said Mrs. Hamlin. “If it be the Lord's will that Reuben live, he will
live, and if it be not His will, yet still will I praise His name for
His great goodness in that I am permitted to take care of him, and
do for him to the last. Who can say but the Most High will show still
greater mercy to his servant, and save my son alive?”
As soon as the sick men were a little revived from the exhaustion of
their journey, tubs of water were provided in the shed, and they washed
themselves all over, Elnathan and Perez assisting in the repulsive task.
Then, their filthy prison garments being thrown away, they were dressed
in old clothing of Elnathan's, and their hair and matted beards were
shorn off with scissors. Perez built a fire in the huge open fireplace
to ward off the slight chill of evening, and the sick men were
comfortably arranged before it upon the great settle. The elderly woman
and the deft handed maiden, moved softly about, setting the tea table,
and ministering to the needs of the invalids, arranging now a covering,
now moving a stool, or maybe merely resting their cool and tender palms
upon the fevered foreheads. Fennell had fallen peacefully asleep, but
Reuben's face wore a smile, and in his eyes, as they languidly followed
his mother's motions, to and fro, there was a look of unutterable
content.
“I declar for 't,” piped old Elnathan, as he sat in the chimney corner
warming his fingers over the ruddy blaze, “I declar for 't, mother, the
boy looks like another man a' ready. They ain't nothin like hum fer sick
folks.”
“I shan't want no doctor's stuff,” said Reuben, feebly. “Seein mother
round 's med'cin nuff fer me, I guess.”
And Perez, as he stood leaning against the chimney, and looking on the
scene, lit by the flickering firelight, said to himself, that never
surely, in all his fighting had he ever drawn his sword to such good and
holy purpose as that day.
Soon after nightfall the latchstring was pulled in a timid sort of way,
and Obadiah Weeks stood on the threshold, waiting sheepishly till Mrs.
Hamlin bade him enter. He came forward, toward the chimney, taking off
his hat and smoothing his hair with his hand.
“It looks kinder good tew see a fire,” he remarked, presently
supplementing this by the observation that it was “kinder hot, though,”
and grinning vaguely around at every one in the room, with the exception
of Prudence. He did not look at her, though he looked all around her. He
put his hands in his pockets and took them out, rubbed one boot against
the other, and examined a wart on one of his thumbs, as if he now
observed it for the first time, and was quite absorbed in the discovery.
Then with a suddenness that somewhat startled Perez, who had been
observing him with some curiosity, he wheeled round so as to face
Prudence, and simultaneously sought in his pocket for something. Not
finding it at first, his face got very red. Finally, however, he drew
forth a little bundle and gave it to the girl, mumbling something about
“Sassafras, thort mebbe 'twould be good fer yer dad,” and bolted out of
the room.
Nobody said anything after Obadiah's abrupt retirement, but when a few
moments later, Prudence looked shyly around, with cheeks a little
rosier than usual, she saw Perez regarding her with a slight smile of
amusement. A minute after she got up and went over to Mrs. Hamlin, and
laid the sassafras in her lap, saying:
“Don't you want this, Mrs. Hamlin? I'm sure I don't know what it's good
for,” and went back to her seat and sat down again, with a slight toss
of the head.
Presently a medley of discordant sounds began to float up from the
village on the gentle southerly breeze. There was a weird, unearthly
groaning, as of a monster in pain, mingled with the beating of tin-pans.
Perez finally went to see what it was. At the end of the lane he met
Peleg Bidwell, and Peleg explained the matter.